Bolkestein’s final warning to Britain

From European Voice's Entre-Nous column

11/17/04, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/23/14, 8:32 PM CET

“Do not go gentle,” wrote some poet or another. Which advice is followed exuberantly by Frits Bolkestein in a waspish letter to the British treasury minister John Healey who dared suggest that Bolkestein had “an axe to grind” against the UK.

Healey was reacting to the Commission’s decision last month to take the UK to the European Court of Justice over the way customs officers applied allowances on tobacco and alcohol. Bolkestein was clearly not going to leave the matter to his successor, László Kovács, who takes over responsibilities for taxation matters.

Before catching the plane for the US, he signed a letter warning Healey that his comments “are highly damaging to the public image of the EU in the UK”. Just for good measure the letter was copied to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, the UK’s man in Brussels John Grant, Kovács and the incoming UK commissioner Peter Mandelson.

There is something splendidly parochial about the state-aid investigation launched last week by the European Commission’s competition department into JC Decaux, a French advertising company. The question …